Arsenal have signed a £100m deal with Emirates Airlines, which will see their new 60,000-seater ground at Ashburton Grove named the Emirates Stadium.

The deal also sees Emirates become the Gunners' shirt sponsor for eight years - starting in 2006-07.

The stadium, which should open in the same season, will take on its new name for the next 15 years.

"The sheer size of this deal is an amazing opportunity," said Arsenal managing director Keith Edelman.

In a statement, the club added: "The combined value of both elements of the sponsorship is by far the biggest deal ever undertaken in English football."

Gunners chairman Peter Hill-Wood said he had mixed feelings about the decision to name the stadium after a sponsor.

Hill-Wood accepted that many traditional fans would have been happier to see the new stadium named in honour of an Arsenal legend.

We are talking a huge sum of money for the sponsorship, and you have to recognise the club's massive financial investment in the stadium

Paul Matz, secretary AISA

"I would be one those supporters," he said. "I've been here a long time, a great many years and if we named the new stadium after Herbert Chapman or even Arsene Wenger it would roll off the tongue.

"But things have changed in football and this is a wonderful offer we have received - the biggest ever in English football. We must move on."

Paul Matz, secretary of the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association, agreed the deal was just too good to turn down.

"Part of being an Arsenal supporter is appreciating the culture and tradition of the club," he said.

"But we are talking a huge sum of money for the sponsorship, and you have to recognise the club's massive financial investment in the stadium.

"I want to see Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and Arsene Wenger stay at the club. They are on big wages and we all make judgements about how far we'd go to keep them - personally I think this is fair enough.

"And from surveys we've done with the fans, the majority of them were prepared to sell the ground's naming rights too."

But Mike Francis from the Arsenal fanzine The Gooner said: "It didn't really come as a surprise as we'd been kind of expecting it, but I was a bit annoyed and upset anyway.